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In addition to paid travel and credit card sign-up bonuses, another great way to earn points is through shopping portals. For those of you who may not know, shopping portals give you additional points for buying products through them.
(READ MORE: Earning Miles Through Shopping Portals)
(READ MORE: How I earned over 1.6 million points in 2016)
Right now, United and American are also offering a back to school promotion, and now, you can earn Southwest Rapid Rewards points too!
Southwest Airlines Back to School Promotion
This bonus runs from now until August 18th, and it is a tiered promotion, meaning:
- Spend $125, get 250 bonus miles
- Spend $300, get 900 bonus miles
- Spend $550, get 2,000 bonus miles
While this promotion is arguably the weakest of the three (United gives more points and American gives the same amount of points for less spend), it may make sense to combine the three promotions if you have a lot of back to school (or just regular!) shopping to do.
Earning Points
On the promotion landing page, the website also gives you some sample places where you can shop and earn even more points per dollar on your portal purchases.
If you spend all $550 required for the promotion at Lord & Taylor, for instance, you’ll earn 4 points per dollar (2,200 points) plus the 2,000 points for the promotion, for a total of 4,200 points! That’s in addition to the credit card point you’ll earn from spending as well.
Terms and Conditions
- During the “Back to School” bonus campaign, which runs from July 24, 2017 through August 18, 2017 at 11:59 p.m. ET (the “Bonus Period”), Member will earn a one-time bonus of up to 2,000 bonus points on qualifying purchases, in addition to the standard points earned from shopping online through Rapid Rewards Shopping.
- This one-time bonus award will be determined using one of the following tiers, based on Member’s cumulative qualifying purchases made during the Bonus Period: Tier 1 bonus: 250 points for qualifying purchases of at least $125; Tier 2 bonus: 900 points for qualifying purchases of at least $300; or Tier 3 bonus: 2,000 points for qualifying purchases of $550 or more.
- “Qualifying purchases” do not include returns, cancellations, shipping and handling, taxes, gift card or other cash equivalent purchases, and certain products that are not eligible for bonus points.
- Please see the Rapid Rewards Shopping site for details on product eligibility and other restrictions.
Will you be earning these bonus points? Do you take advantage of these shopping portal bonuses in general? Let us know below!
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
Do these points count towards companion pass? I’ve had some inconsistency when looking at my account despite there being no terms listed that suggest they don’t count.
Yes – these should count towards the Companion Pass